


Original Fiction: Morningstars + Plague Bearers

by ExcessivelyLiberal



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate History Project, Assigned Short Story, Other, Short Story, Social Studies Assignment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 03:52:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10982796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExcessivelyLiberal/pseuds/ExcessivelyLiberal
Summary: A short story I was assigned to write for an honors Social Studies class. I'll be back to fanfiction soon.





	Original Fiction: Morningstars + Plague Bearers

Lady Cantaneese was dead and rotting three day after the bleeding began. 

The uproar that followed in its wake was immediate and explosive, whispers threading through the fields and camps of LaGrand Valley Plantation like strands of the Blue Plague itself. 

Severina Morningstar, officially dubbed 2097 by the Higher Powers and Sevvy by her brother and the local merchants, bit a chapped lip as she struggled to tug a stubborn Avernath root from the dry soil from which is flourished. The sun beat down from the cloudless sky with an apathetic glare, and a single bead of sweat slid from her temple and into her dark eyes. The same eyes she shared with her entire grimy community, the same eyes she shared with Lady Cantaneese before they glazed over.

Scenes from the Burning Ceremony the night before flashed through Severina’s mind every few moments, each memory cutting her mind like Lady Isabella’s unpruned white roses to her fingertips.

“You know she had to burn. There’s no choice, unless you want the rest of us to follow her into the ground.”

 

“She was so young! No, Zia, I’m not saying she didn’t deserve it, of course she did, but-”

 

“I don’t see why we should be forced to be here. There’s fieldwork to be done, and they’ll be the one’s to whip us when we don’t pick enough cotton…”

 

“Burning the body won’t do anything if the infection’s already spread.”

 

“Sevvy- I don’t like it here… why is the fire blue? Can you make blue fire?” 

\---

Cleo Jeovani was dead and rotting 48 hours after the bleeding began. 

Luca Darrowomen gazed down blankly at the dissolving corpse of his best friend. The seven year old boy sat cross legged and uncomprehending, numb to the biting chill of this artificial breeze that cut through the Understory of the Dahlia District of the Eighth Sector, located on the outer rim of the West Virginian Colony. 

Luca dropped his head against the concrete slab behind him, wrapping his thin, pale arms around his bony knees in some semblance of comfort. That’s when the first rain drop fell. It clattered harshly against the thin steel canopy overhead and Luca bolted up so fast he fell forward, nearly tumbling into Cleo’s decomposing body. 

The young boy shook with fear and indecision. It had been so stupid to bring her up here: this city wasn’t like Del Reyna; there was no Canopy to protect them, no Shell. 

In most inner metropolises, overcrowding was met with confined space and resulted in the Manhattan Project: the slow but steady construction of hundreds of feet worth of developments stacked precariously atop one another, connected by make-shift bridges and crudely built catwalks. By the year 2091, several thousand citizens could squeeze tightly into each square block, each acre of functioning land an architectural miracle. 

But innovation doesn’t arrive without a price.

Every distortion of the natural world stood as a metaphorical step to its own destruction. The cities were contaminated with filth and smog, filled with hard drugs and desperation. Nature was all but eliminated to make way for towering structures and enhanced botanical gardens. Considerably most dangerous, however, was the Acid Rain. 

Also dubbed the Pestilent Showers or God’s Hail, regionally, the Rain was conceived from nearly three centuries of environmental disregard, and was considered to be the most hazardous predicament of the age, only after the Blue Plague. 

To summarize briefly, the Rain was a toxic deposit of tainted water that was acidically powerful enough to cut through cement in a matter minutes. Foreseen to become a hazard decades before it did, a ten foot thick blockade separated the Northern citizens and the atmosphere. It was crafted from reinforced titanium and an unknown steel alloy, made to sustain an entire population just long enough for an underground civilization to be crudely constructed, filled and sealed.

That had been three years ago; and the inhabitants of the North had quickly discovered that it would take a long time to build a community as ideal as what the Governors had promised. Too long to create a district large and grand enough to accommodate such an immense population. 

But the Canopy was dissolving and the underground district wasn’t making enough progress; and there was no possibility that it could house and uphold the entire northern society. But soon enough, a grudging compromise was made: if one could pay their way into the Caverns, as they were soon titled, they could burrow and flourish under the artificial starlight. Unfortunately, as one would imagine, very few could scrounge up enough to sustain themselves on a weekly basis, much less bribe their way into survival. They were left on the toxic surface.

Luca’s mother, the late Macora Morningstar Barrowmen, had never stood a chance in any aspect. Her husband was stabbed in a mugging days before her eldest daughter had been born, her sister, Deleena (as well as her daughter, Severina, and son, Caspar), had been stolen away into an unknown fate when Luca was four, and to top it all off, had caught the Blue Plague just a few months later.

That was around the time Luca had first met Cleo. 

She was wild and clever, and so unlike the tear stricken child she had found curled in a cramped apartment room, gripping the hand of the cold and lifeless body that had once been his mother. She had taken him under her wind and taught him how to fend for himself and live off the streets. The pair slowly worked their way out of the city down the coast, dodging gangs and packs of starving dogs. They found solace in each others dull eyes and peace in each others comforting lies- but all too soon it was over.

Needless to say, Cleo was strong-the strongest person Luca had ever met. But strength makes no difference in the eyes of the disease, and so like in the stories his mother used to tell him and the songs she used to sing, some entity stole her away and once again he was alone.

\---

The bleeding had started three hours ago and Remmy Jeovani, the self appointed camp doctor, informed Kyra Sotomyer that her twin sister probably wouldn’t make it another two. 

Kyra gripped Emilea’s death-cold fingers as another tear escaped her unseeing eyes. This wasn’t fair. They had escaped the Northern Borders hand in hand, had stoked fires and scavenged unfamiliar land for freedom from the ominous cloud that had hung over their bowed heads all their lives. Kyra’s left eye had been scratched out by a wild dog, and Emilea’s hair was singed at the tips. They had fought and bled across an unforgiving terrain of wilderness and yet death had managed to follow them. 

Kyra tilted her face up at the setting sun, envisioning the scene that she nor her sister would ever see again.


End file.
